Social Mobility & Access to HE
2015/16 Seminar series
“Deserving poor? Higher education
bursaries and academic performance in
England” - Dr. Gill Wyness
Higher education bursaries are the sole form of non-merit based
student aid in England that is devolved to institution level. And
after the abolition of student maintenance grants in 2016, they
will be the major source of non-repayable aid for poor students.
Since their introduction in 2006, universities have embraced
bursaries, spending some £300m on them in 2015. They have also
embraced the relative autonomy the system allows – their
approaches to spending vary widely. But what are the
consequences of devolving student aid to university level?
In this paper Dr. Gill Wyness shows that, far from reducing
income inequalities, the decentralized nature of the bursaries
system exacerbates already existing economic inequalities in
higher education. Whilst students’ prior A-level attainment is the
main driver of their success at university, there is an important
interaction between income background and prior attainment –
students from the poorest backgrounds perform worse at
university within every prior attainment group. This suggests a
positive role for means tested aid such as bursaries, particularly
when coupled with academic support.
Wednesday 21st October
12.30-1.30pm
UCL Institute of Education
20 Bedford Way, London,
WC1H 0AL
If you have any queries please contact
Anna Leamon anna.leamon@ucl.ac.uk
Dr Gill Wyness is Lecturer in the
Economics of Education at UCL IOE.
She joined the IOE following postdoctoral research at the Institute for
Fiscal Studies and the Centre for
Economic Performance at the
London School of Economics.
Her main research area is the
economics of Higher Education in the
UK. Past research includes a
quantitative analysis of the impact of
tuition fees on participation, and a
randomized control trial examining
the effects of providing information on
HE finance to pupils in London
schools on their attitudes towards
university.
To book your place, please visit http://www.tfaforms.com/377476
www.ucl.ac.uk